Poetry | Fiction | Registers

Author Archives: Lune Loh

Between us, the brane that
makes universes parallel.
What is perpendicular: pain
if we ever intersect. Your foot
pressed on my stomach is an
allegory for rejection, and up
for it: more unloved things
aside from me; Or geometry
where two points make no line;
The star that failed to shine.
As constellations, we are near
on paper. In paper you blazed
like an unwanted poem you
& I line break. & I felt cold.

Determinism was true. See:
All events from the start
end in us not fated to be.
I placed it at knifepoint
just to cry at the impossible:
Somewhere in the Ming
you were sipping wine.
In 30s Shanghai, I drank
to serve men. Always
a disservice to myself.
Servicing these timelines,
they turn into a square, an
opposition. Stars aligning
into queues into spirals
into nadir into breaths
of what has always been.
Somewhere in here I died
during the war. Somewhere
was a place we never met.

How do I place it in words – Part of me strongly finds Tembusu a mistake; The other insists that it has always been the right decision.

Former argues that you listened to her, made her the reason, which resulted in a terrible choice. Latter retorts by saying that the Former is overthinking: “You are causing your own misery.” Former, at a loss of words, says that you should never have met her. Latter tries to find something to pick at, and concludes that you need to settle your own emotions before it destroys you.

Former always goes into a downward spiral. Former is asking many questions: “Why am I so ugly”, “Why did I fall for her”, “Why am I vying for her attention as if I were desperate for love”, “You haven’t changed since 10 years ago, haven’t you”, “Will you ever learn”, “Is there beauty”, “Why am I so hideous”, “Is it because she no longer has time for me”, “Why am I so selfish”, “Why, why, why”.

Latter exhales: “Clearly you went in with very high expectations – The returns are simply awful.”

Latter continues: “Clearly, she is a friend. She will always be. Find another phase.”

Former, not listening, mentions: “You’re transgender – You do not deserve love. You’re disgusting. Remember how people forget to use “she” when referring to you. Remember how someone mentioned that there are only 6 girls when there’s 7. Remember how the state fails to recognize you. Remember how you can never be the woman you want to be. Remember how the moment she stopped singing your praises, and you realized that you were petty, ugly, undesirable, jealous, and all the longkang metaphors became true and your being is stained to the last grime.”

Latter, also not listening, says: “Do not tie your self-worth to her.”

As I dragged a sunbeam you stopped
smiling at me. Made my own morning
like a nostalgic breakfast. Found the sun
in these eggs, scrambled and dispersed.
This stanza is diagnosed with Jaundice
and not the above conditions. I escaped
from dreams, coming to terms with yellow
eyes; Things uglier than the summer heat
frothing inside me. Brushed away yellowed
teeth instead of your rays that pierced me.
I watched you, having the autonomy of a star.

Words she took out of my mouth,
she wrote a poem; Found the moon.
I take back what I said about her:
You Gorgon, with a bite you created
the Crescent. If that is not beauty,
there is still the phrase about phases:
On your face, figurative expressions-
All frightening the cores of stars,
showering praise as I cried the night.
A lump in my throat turned to stone.
Which was hard. Difficult to love.
Love too difficult, gravity too easy.

The school fence divided a past –
Unlike the road between Nan Hua and
NUSH being syllables of us, and an
aphorism. Outside the fence was
bubble tea, and the rest of a future
without it. She walked me to the station.
Before that someone jumped, landing still.
My heart did flutter on both occasions –
It too, wanted the sky without gravity.
On both occasions was a sinking feeling.
In this timeline movement was loss.
There went the bubble tea shop, too,
when I moved in to queue. Waiting.
To meet her just to forget her later.
Everyone will forget who jumped, too,
and how I climbed the fence, still
running between syllables, and away.

Dreaming of the depths I knew
my name. A left radical sharing
what’s inside the Chinese rain.
Much deeper, was the universe
in a stroke. Haemorrhaging left
galaxies. Blake’s Tyger left alone.
Like Medusa, sculpted in their prime
and indivisible. The Artist measures
them in the thunderstorm, struck alive
via negativa into a vignette. At Marina
I shot the horizon a glance. It drank a
cordial distance, swallowing the deep
again, killing a star. We let that sink
for millennia, carving marble into shatters.